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Nord
Département
Prefecture building of the Nord department, in Lille
FlagCoat of arms
Location of Nord in France
Coordinates: 50°23′N 03°19′E / 50.383°N 3.317°E / 50.383; 3.317
Country	France
Region	Hauts-de-France
Prefecture	Lille
Subprefectures	Avesnes- sur-Helpe Cambrai Douai Dunkirk Valenciennes
Government
• President of the Departmental Council	Christian Poiret
Area
• Total	5,743 km (2,217 sq mi)
Population
• Total	2,611,293
• Rank	1st
• Density	450/km (1,200/sq mi)
Time zone	UTC+1 (CET)
• Summer (DST)	UTC+2 (CEST)
ISO 3166 code	FR-59
Department number	59
Arrondissements	6
Cantons	41
Communes	648
^1 French Land Register data, which exclude estuaries, and lakes, ponds, and glaciers larger than 1 km

Nord (French pronunciation: [nɔʁ] ; officially French: département du Nord; Picard: départémint dech Nord; Dutch: Noorderdepartement, lit. 'Northern Department') is a département in Hauts-de-France region, France bordering Belgium. It was created from the western halves of the historical counties of Flanders and Hainaut, and the Bishopric of Cambrai. The modern coat of arms was inherited from the County of Flanders.

Nord is the country's most populous département. It had a population of 2,608,346 in 2019. It also contains the metropolitan region of Lille (the main city and the prefecture of the département), the fourth-largest urban area in France after Paris, Lyon and Marseille. The department is the part of France where the French Flemish dialect of Dutch has historically been spoken as a native language. Similarly, the distinct French Picard dialect Ch'ti is spoken there.

History

Until the 17th century, the history of the North (Nord, French department) was largely in common with the history of Belgium (the Celtics Belgians during Antiquity were a multitude of Celtic peoples from the north of Gaul). The historical French provinces that preceded Nord are French Flanders, French Hainaut (part of Hainaut and Flanders is in the Kingdom of Belgium). Tribes of the Belgae, such as the Menapii and Nervii were the first peoples recorded in the area later known as Nord.

During the 4th and 5th Centuries, Roman rulers of Gallia Belgica secured the route from the major port of Bononia (Boulogne) to Colonia (Cologne), by co-opting Germanic peoples north-east of this corridor, such as the Tungri. In effect, the area known later as Nord became an isogloss (linguistic border) between the Germanic and Romance languages. Saxon colonisation of the region from the 5th to the 8th centuries likely shifted the isogloss further south so that, by the 9th century, most people immediately north of Lille spoke a dialect of Old Dutch. This has remained evident in the place names of the region. After the County of Flanders became part of France in the 9th century, the isogloss moved north and east.

During the 14th century, much of the area came under the control of the Duchy of Burgundy and in subsequent centuries was therefore part of the Habsburg Netherlands (from 1482) and the Spanish Netherlands (1581).

Areas that later constituted Nord were ceded to France by treaties in 1659, 1668, and 1678, becoming the Counties of Flanders and Hainaut, and part of the Bishopric of Cambrai.

On 4 March 1790, during the French Revolution, Nord became one of the original 83 departments created to replace the counties.

Modern government policies making French the only official language have led to a decline in use of the Dutch West Flemish dialect. There are currently 20,000 speakers of a sub-dialect of West Flemish in the arrondissement of Dunkirk and it appears likely that this particular sub-dialect will be extinct within decades.

Geography

Nord is part of the current Hauts-de-France region and is surrounded by the French departments of Pas-de-Calais, Somme, and Aisne, as well as by Belgium and the North Sea. Its area is 5,742.8 km (2,217.3 sq mi). It is the longest department in metropolitan France, measuring 184 km from Fort-Philippe in the north-west to Anor in the south-east.

Situated in the north of the country along the western half of the Belgian frontier, the department is unusually long and narrow. The principal rivers are the following: Yser, Lys, Escaut, Scarpe, Sambre.

Principal towns

The most populous commune is Lille, the prefecture. With nearby Roubaix, Tourcoing and Villeneuve-d'Ascq, it constitutes the center of a cluster of industrial and former mining towns totalling slightly over a million inhabitants. As of 2019, there are 10 communes with more than 30,000 inhabitants:

Demographics

With a population of 2,608,346 in 2019, Nord is the department with the largest population.

Politics

The President of the Departmental Council is the unaffiliated right-winger Christian Poiret.

The first President of the Fifth Republic, General Charles de Gaulle, was born in Lille in the department on 22 November 1890.

Presidential elections second round

Current National Assembly Representatives

Economy

Until recently, the department was dominated economically by coal mining, which extended through the heart of the department from neighbouring Artois into central Belgium.

At the forefront of France's 19th century industrialisation, the area suffered severely during World War I and now faces the economic, social and environmental problems associated with the decline of coal mining with its neighbours, following the earlier decline of the Lille-Roubaix textile industry.

Tourism

• The old stock exchange of Lille
• Saint-Winoc Abbey in Bergues
• Belfry of Douai
• Windmill in Boeschepe
• Mining museum in Lewarde

See also

• Cantons of the Nord department
• Communes of the Nord department
• Arrondissements of the Nord department (France)
• French Flemish
• Université Lille Nord de France

References

1. "Répertoire national des élus: les conseillers départementaux". data.gouv.fr, Plateforme ouverte des données publiques françaises (in French). 4 May 2022.
2. "Téléchargement du fichier d'ensemble des populations légales en 2021" (in French). The National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies. 28 December 2023.
3. ^ Populations légales 2019: 59 Nord, INSEE
4. ^ "Dutch dialect" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 9 October 2022. (404 KB)
5. "Comparateur de territoire − Comparez les territoires de votre choix - Résultats pour les communes, départements, régions, intercommunalités... | Insee". www.insee.fr (in French). Retrieved 13 January 2022.
6. "Le SPLAF - Historique du Nord". splaf.free.fr.
7. Population en historique depuis 1968, INSEE
8. "Christian Poiret, élu président du conseil départemental du Nord". France Bleu (in French). 1 July 2021. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
9. "Départementales 2021 dans le Nord : découvrez les résultats définitifs du second tour". France 3 Hauts-de-France (in French). Retrieved 13 January 2022.
10. ^ "Présidentielles / Les résultats / Elections - Ministère de l'Intérieur" (in French). Interieur.gouv.fr. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
11. "Résultats de l'élection présidentielle de 1995 par département". Politiquemania. Retrieved 30 April 2022.
12. Assemblée Nationale (25 April 2022). "Assemblée nationale ~ Les députés, le vote de la loi, le Parlement français". Assemblee-nationale.fr. Retrieved 30 April 2022.

External links

• (In French) Prefecture website
• (In French) Departmental Council website

v t e Departments of France
Metropolitan	01 Ain 02 Aisne 03 Allier 04 Alpes-de-Haute-Provence 05 Hautes-Alpes 06 Alpes-Maritimes 07 Ardèche 08 Ardennes 09 Ariège 10 Aube 11 Aude 12 Aveyron 13 Bouches-du-Rhône 14 Calvados 15 Cantal 16 Charente 17 Charente-Maritime 18 Cher 19 Corrèze 2A Corse-du-Sud 2B Haute-Corse 21 Côte-d'Or 22 Côtes-d'Armor 23 Creuse 24 Dordogne 25 Doubs 26 Drôme 27 Eure 28 Eure-et-Loir 29 Finistère 30 Gard 31 Haute-Garonne 32 Gers 33 Gironde 34 Hérault 35 Ille-et-Vilaine 36 Indre 37 Indre-et-Loire 38 Isère 39 Jura 40 Landes 41 Loir-et-Cher 42 Loire 43 Haute-Loire 44 Loire-Atlantique 45 Loiret 46 Lot 47 Lot-et-Garonne 48 Lozère 49 Maine-et-Loire 50 Manche 51 Marne 52 Haute-Marne 53 Mayenne 54 Meurthe-et-Moselle 55 Meuse 56 Morbihan 57 Moselle 58 Nièvre 59 Nord 60 Oise 61 Orne 62 Pas-de-Calais 63 Puy-de-Dôme 64 Pyrénées-Atlantiques 65 Hautes-Pyrénées 66 Pyrénées-Orientales 67 Bas-Rhin 68 Haut-Rhin 69D Rhône 70 Haute-Saône 71 Saône-et-Loire 72 Sarthe 73 Savoie 74 Haute-Savoie 76 Seine-Maritime 77 Seine-et-Marne 78 Yvelines 79 Deux-Sèvres 80 Somme 81 Tarn 82 Tarn-et-Garonne 83 Var 84 Vaucluse 85 Vendée 86 Vienne 87 Haute-Vienne 88 Vosges 89 Yonne 90 Territoire de Belfort 91 Essonne 92 Hauts-de-Seine 93 Seine-Saint-Denis 94 Val-de-Marne 95 Val-d'Oise
Overseas	971 Guadeloupe 972 Martinique (territorial collectivity) 973 French Guiana (territorial collectivity) 974 Réunion 976 Mayotte
Special	69M Lyon (collectivity with special status) 75 Paris (collectivity with special status)
Former	975 Saint Pierre and Miquelon (Overseas collectivity)

• Nord (French department)
• 1790 establishments in France
• Departments of Hauts-de-France
• States and territories established in 1790